


somewhere between the seed and the sky (fly away, flyboy)

by kay_cricketed



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Heroes and Villains AU, M/M, ash is four hundred percent done with everything, banana fish 2018 gift exchange, eiji has to resort to paraphrasing jane austen's sense and sensibility, friends don't let friends date superheroes, mostly fluff and humor, some violence and blood but everyone is okay, unresolved romantic tension gets resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 07:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17240105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_cricketed/pseuds/kay_cricketed
Summary: Freelance photographer Eiji Okumura unexpectedly attracts the attention of a local superhero and, with it, equal shares of wonderment and trouble.  He'd be happier about the change if not for the amount of evil monologues he's had to sit through.Like, there are so many.





	somewhere between the seed and the sky (fly away, flyboy)

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo and happy holidays to all! For the 2018 gift exchange, I loved all of the given prompts but ended up being really taken with the idea of doing the fluffy "heroes and villains" AU because, well, I've never done one. Also, it's a nice tongue-in-cheek break from my much more serious Banana Fish works in progress. It's not quite a story, but it's not not a story? Shhh, just go with it.
> 
> I really hope you like it, Makiko, and that it's close to what you'd wanted. Have a happy new year!

**the current state of affairs**

 

Eiji was tied to a chair. He was tired, hungry, and cold. He’d listened to over three hours of _monologuing_ and that was certainly more than he could be expected to handle while maintaining an upbeat attitude.

“It appears your beloved Lynx is running late,” Silk Spider announced, throwing his long inky hair over his shoulder with a dramatic flourish. He was perched in the rafters of the abandoned warehouse, which allowed his voice to echo—very important, Eiji wagered, since he liked hearing himself talk so much—and gave him the higher ground for the fight to come. Every so often, Eiji craned his head up, even though it hurt, to catch a glimpse of the red and gold costume that shone dully in the shadows.

“He’s not mine,” Eiji said, not for the first time.

“He must be truly wound up,” said Silk Spider, ignoring him. “Frantic, by this hour. I could be doing any number of horrible things to you.”

Eiji thought about that and agreed that there were many horrible things Silk Spider could be doing to him. It _had_ been a while.

“Are you certain Ash saw your message?” he asked.

“Of course. I pinned it to your newsroom’s skywalk with my needles. They’ve run the story at least seven times since then. Three of the stories were more speculation about your relationship than the kidnapping, but…”

“Maybe he is on vacation,” Eiji suggested.

Silk Spider made a noise of outrage. He dropped from the ceiling at a sickening speed, came to an abrupt stop, and then spun, curled in on himself, on a glistening wire in front of Eiji. At this proximity, his scowl more closely resembled a petulant child than a criminal mastermind. “Superheroes don’t take vacations,” he spat. “Ash Lynx doesn’t take _vacations_.”

“I told him to take a vacation last week,” Eiji said. “He gets tired, you know? He saved that school bus of children from Doctor Pandemonium? And then he about fell asleep on his feet, going...” He mimicked nodding off, bobbing his head.

“I hate you so much,” said Silk Spider.

“You really expect too much from him,” Eiji told him sincerely.

From his hair, Silk Spider drew a long silver needle. “Before you came along, he was so _close_ to giving into his potential,” he said, sighing. “As much as I appreciate how easy it is now to make him come running…”

Eiji eyed the needle, then Silk Spider, and considered his options. He decided to spit in his face.

Never let it be said he had any kind of impulse control when it came to Silk Spider.

Silk Spider wiped the spittle off his cheek, narrowed his eyes, and yanked Eiji back by his hair until his neck was pressed uncomfortably to the rim of the chair. “You’re going to regret that,” he said, the tip of the needle pricking beneath Eiji’s cheekbone.

“He won’t,” said Ash Lynx, savior of the city and beloved hero of thousands, from above them. “But you will.”

And Eiji, who thought he’d been well-composed, closed his eyes. He breathed as if he’d never tasted oxygen in his life. He even forgave the cliché opener.

The battle was over within fifteen minutes—it usually was. Eiji kept his eyes shut for most of the rescue, listening to the crash and bang and crack of the warehouse as it was likely obliterated around him because he’d learned the hard way that watching riled him up. Eventually, Silk Spider got tired of hawking accusations and offers of domination—he always soured his own fun, Eiji thought—and threw himself out the window because he was the most accurate definition of _Extra™_ that Eiji had ever known.

“Nothing you love will ever be safe!” Silk Spider howled, and then he was gone.

“His blood sugar levels must be awful,” said Eiji. He opened his eyes in time to see Ash float down and hover an inch from the dirty cement floor, mouth flattened into a line. He was in ripped denim jeans and his jacket, which was the only “costume” he ever deigned to wear even after the press and public demanded otherwise. His hair was drying, the roots still damp, and Eiji could smell his nondescript shampoo.

He snapped the ropes around Eiji’s wrists, then the ones around his chest, as if they were silly string. 

“I heard some of what you said,” said Ash. “You shouldn’t wind him up.”

Eiji wished he had his camera. He wanted to take a picture of Ash’s irritation. It wouldn’t be a picture he’d sell—it’d be just for Eiji, who liked that kind of expression on Ash.

“I’m sorry,” Ash said, lower. The irritation was gone now; unreadable, he stared at the rope burn braided into Eiji’s wrists, his jaw set in a way that would’ve been more photogenic to the papers. “I took too long. Anything could’ve happened to you, and I…”

Eiji was tired, hungry, and cold. These things were still true, but suddenly he didn’t mind as much. He reached for Ash’s hands and used his steadfast grip to haul himself out of the chair, swaying as blood rushed to his extremities. “It’s okay,” he said, feeling as if the world were moving beneath him, drawing him into Ash’s sphere. “I’m sure you were very busy.”

“I was grocery shopping,” Ash said. “Someone told me I should take a vacation, so I slept in. But I got hungry and it turns out you can’t count on thank-you casseroles from your neighbor when she’s got her grandkids over. I didn’t see the news until I was in the check-out line.”

Eiji wondered, not for the first time, how his life had become so weird. “If you fly me home, I’ll make you lunch,” he offered, not thinking it through until after the words had escaped. He felt his face go hot.

Ash opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The only consolation was his cheeks were looking a little pink, too, although it could have easily been the sunlight gone sallow on the harbor. “It’s, uh, four in the afternoon.”

_Well, it could have been lunch if you’d been here three hours ago,_ Eiji thought. It seemed a little unkind to point out, though, all things considered.

Out loud, he said decisively, “Dinner then.”

 

**the origin story of eiji okumura, not-superhero**

 

Ironically, it started with a photograph he never took.

Most events in Eiji’s life were marked by photographs. His uncle had given him a disposal camera when he was seven. He’d taken pictures of the small two-bedroom apartment his parents had built, carefully and with love, to appear larger than it was, with everything folded and tucked in its place. He’d taken pictures of the local park, the hubcap on a Volkswagen Beetle, four dogs of varying sizes and temperaments, and the razor-red streetlights bleeding out in the water puddles when it rained. When that camera was used up, he spent his pocket money to buy another, and then another, and then another. By the time he was eleven, his mother had gifted him a proper camera. By fifteen, Eiji spent more time behind a lens than without one. The world was a kinder—if more distant—world from that view.

By twenty, he had a handful of college credits, a discerning eye, and a hard-working and amiable disposition. That was enough, anyway, for the Big Apple Bite, which paid him peanuts for any number of photographs: captured moments of humanity, high-profile figures, crime scenes, and most of all _superheroes_.

Eiji scraped by on politicians—all of those human moments that paid the least—a few crime scenes, if only because he lived in a cheaper but less-than-reputable part of the city. It paid the bills (sometimes). It put food in the icebox (rarely). The gaps, he filled in by covering family portraits, weddings, bar mitzvahs—a modeling gig with a woman who asked if he’d like to try on her knee-high boots. He did on account of manners.

Maybe his life was a little quiet. Maybe he felt a little empty.

Maybe it would’ve always been that way if he hadn’t met Ash Lynx.

Eiji knew _about_ the infamous Ash Lynx—everyone did—but he was extraordinarily difficult to photograph or pin down for any length of time. Of the superheroes who protected the city, he was the least likely to agree to an interview or stick around after his do-gooding had been accomplished. Normally, public relations fell to his comrade-in-cape Zip, the faster-than-a-bullet-train super with a purple mohawk and bright orange sunglasses. Zip liked to talk. Zip liked _people_.

“The Lynx isn’t so big on either of those things,” he said in good cheer for the cameras. “But hey, he’s not a total enigma, just a nerd. His favorite color is blue. His type is librarian. He likes piña coladas and long walks in the rain. Cried when we watched _Love Actually_. Next question!”

In fact, Eiji had never met any superhero. The closest he had come was watching the distant lights of some fraught battle from the safety of his apartment, sipping tea and picking at threads in his well-loved sweater as he resigned himself to the power going out at least once in the chaos. It was a part of his life; he’d grown up in a cityscape besieged by the likes of Silk Spider, Doctor Pandemonium, Knuckle Sandwich, Fox Trap, and on the most dire of days, _Dino_. But for every threat was a hero ready to push back. That, too, was a part of his life.

It might’ve never changed, except Shunichi Ibe—the lead photographer for the Big Apple Bite—was sick with the flu the same day Knuckle Sandwich held a subway car hostage under Brooklyn.

When the news broke, Eiji was listening sympathetically to Annie talk about her ex-boyfriend’s nosedive into narcotics in the break room, a manila envelope of human interest photographs tucked under his arm. “You made the right decision,” he was saying, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

“I just wish he would’ve tried to—” 

“Eiji!” Max Lobo barked, catching himself on the door jamb as he almost hurtled past. “Do you have your camera?!”

Eiji looked down at the camera hanging from his neck.

“Great,” said Max. “Shunichi’s singing to the porcelain princess, so you’re with me. C’mon, kid!”

Eiji did go with him. At first, it was only to explain earnestly to Max, the newspaper’s most prolific and notorious reporter on the superheroes and supervillains beat, that he was a lowly freelancer with no background whatsoever in dodging explosions or flying cars or the Zip. There were other veteran photographers in the newsroom with expert dodging experience. Max laughed at him and said, “Wow, are you for real?” Then, without waiting for a response, he said, “Shunichi tells me you’re the one I want. Hurry up, traffic’s jammed so we’ll have to run for it.”

Well, Eiji could run and his rent was due. So he did.

The subway station in question was closed off by the police—a fact Max was _in the know_ about, apparently—so they entered the closest station to it, which was filled with commuters who were waiting, grudgingly, for the lines to start up again. There was an officer on duty, but his attention was torn between eight directions and a litany of complaints. Max didn’t even hesitate to drop down onto a set of tracks and disappear in the tunnels.

Eiji thought, _That feels dangerous._ Then he followed him.

Subway tunnels were disgusting. Within minutes, Eiji’s shoes were approaching ruined and his hoodie was picking up cobwebs that had survived the lumbering locomotives. But Max had fallen silent, and Eiji crept after him, and they got closer and closer and suddenly Eiji could hear people _crying_ and his heart started to pound and he rifled, frantic, through what he could remember about Knuckle Sandwich: the scars across his knuckles, the hateful pull of his mouth on the television, his winged blond hair, his cruelty.

Max slowed and stopped at a curve in the bend. He motioned behind him: _stay low_. 

Eiji peeked around the corner. He could see the end of the subway train lit up in dirty butter yellow. There were armed men idling, lazy-faced, at its back.

_If I listen to Max, everything will be fine,_ he told himself.

Five minutes later, he was on his knees on the gummy floor of the train, a gun locked onto the back of his neck, thinking, _If I listen to Max, I’m going to end up dead._

“Well, well,” said Knuckle Sandwich. “The paparazzi made it to the show.”

“What’s your end goal, _Arthur_?” asked Max, with zero sense of self-preservation. “You know this’ll go the same way it always does. The Lynx will be here any second, your weeny plans will be foiled, and your ass will be grass.”

Knuckle Sandwich’s eye twitched at the Lynx’s name. “You must not want to be here to see it,” he said, brandishing the sharp blades sticking up between his fingers on a lethal set of brass knuckles. Up close and in person, they were significantly more terrifying than they were on a television screen.

Max grinned at him, bloody-toothed. “Nah, I have perfect timing. It’s part of being a reporter.”

“He does,” said Ash Lynx, “and it’s annoying.”

Knuckle Sandwich whirled, shock twisting into a snarl as he caught sight of the superhero. Most of his goons—they’d been there only a moment ago, guns held at ready on the hostages—were crumpled like paper dolls. Behind Ash, people inched out of the exit doors, crawling their way to freedom. It had been a soundless infiltration. A matter of four seconds, maybe less.

Eiji’s first impression of Ash Lynx was the realization _he’s younger than me_ and a chill that shivered up his spine and into his mouth, where he bit down on it hard, nearly breaking skin. He looked at Ash Lynx, but Ash Lynx didn’t spare him a glance, and that helped a little.

“Your timing is what’s perfect,” said Knuckle Sandwich, stepping back next to Eiji. There were still guns at his back, so Eiji couldn’t squirm away from his proximity. “So much _sweeter_ when I open them up in front of you, Ash.”

Ash Lynx had a thousand-yard stare. It promised retribution; it was older than his years and didn’t seem suited to a hero. “I’m putting you down for good, shithead.”

Max raised his hand. “Permission to quote that directly—”

Knuckle Sandwich lunged over Eiji’s head and belted him in the face. 

Blood splattered on the floor. Max coughed, crushed his palm against his cheek, and keened in a way that brought something home to Eiji in an instant.

It really didn’t matter that there was a superhero present.

It really didn’t matter that Eiji was new to this whole _scene_.

Eiji was clutching his camera in his sweaty hands—the nice camera he’d bought with his third paycheck, the camera that had captured photographs that would pay his rent for _months_ if he made it out of here alive. He looked and smelled like a rat’s nest. A few gunmen were still behind him. Relevant though that fact was, he didn’t let it deter him as he got to his feet, and maybe that wasn’t something that happened very often because he was still alive afterwards.

Knuckle Sandwich wiped his mouth and furrowed his brow at him.

“Sorry,” Eiji said, because it was a compulsion, and smashed the camera into his face.

 

**okay, eiji okumura sort-of superhero**

 

“You could’ve died, you idiot,” said Max. “Shunichi’s gonna kill me. He’ll do it while he’s puking, too, and that’s not the way I wanted to go.”

“But he was just _so awful_ ,” Eiji said. He let the paramedic tape his fingers even though the scratches were minor.

Max had cursed at his paramedic until the man left him alone with a puffy square of gauze taped to his face. It was slowly dampening in streaks and it looked like it hurt, but Max didn’t seem to care. “There’s a reason we have superheroes,” he said, hanging on the side of the ambulance in a way that suggested it was solely to loom over Eiji’s head. “If you’re going to tag along again, leave it to the professionals.”

“I’m not tagging along again,” said Eiji, alarmed at the idea. “And he hit you!”

“You are _precious_ ,” Max said. “What the fuck.”

“Uh, excuse me,” said Ash Lynx.

Max lost his grip and about fell on his ass. When he didn’t, he did a slow, weird turn and stared at Ash Lynx as if he had descended from the skies on fire. The paramedic giving Eiji first aid suddenly stopped what he was doing, too. 

“Hello,” Eiji said on account of manners.

“Hi,” said Ash Lynx.

When nothing else seemed forthcoming, Eiji said, “Ah—thank you for stopping them from shooting me?” It sounded like a question, so he tried again. “I’ve never been shot. By a gun, I mean.”

Ash Lynx nodded a few times. Then he made a confused face and stopped.

Eiji cleared his throat. “Have you?” he asked, floundering.

“I—yes? I’ve been shot.”

“I’m sorry,” Eiji said, and meant it. 

Taking two steps back, Ash Lynx took up nodding again. “Right,” he said. “I’m just going to—gotta go. You know. There’s trouble. Somewhere.” He lifted from the pavement as if pulled upward by a string, squinting down at Eiji and Max and the paramedic and probably, too, the stubborn dandelion that had worked its way through the cracks in the sidewalk. “Don’t be reckless again, okay?”

Then he was gone. Higher, higher, higher, until he was a dust mote swallowed by the sun.

Max said, “Tomorrow we’re hiring you full time and switching you to my beat. Congrats, Catnip, you’re in the big leagues now.”

 

**on max lobo**

 

Max called that first encounter a “meet-cute” in the newsroom as often and as loudly as he could, because Max, Eiji soon realized, put all of his stress from an ongoing divorce into making his friends and colleagues as miserable as he was. But while he could be… trying, Eiji decided he liked Max. Max kept a picture of his son on his desk and it was the only part not littered with chocolate bar wrappers, ashtrays, and a thousand dissected leads. Max didn’t take no for an answer because he harbored under the assumption that justice in journalism wasn’t dead. Max didn’t remember to feed himself anything wasn’t prepackaged, so every time Eiji brought him food—cup oatmeal, leftover fish and salad, homemade onigiri—he acted like he was getting five-star service.

All of this endeared him to Eiji enormously, even if Eiji refused to admit it.

The only truly annoying thing was that he pretended to forget Eiji’s name. Instead, he called him Catnip, Bambi, Kryptonite, Kid, Kiddo, Shortstuff, and Shortcake. But when something particularly dangerous or important happened, he reverted to Shunichi’s Ei-chan, soft-voiced, in such a way that Eiji didn’t mind so much after all.

Once, Eiji asked Max why he liked the superhero beat so much.

Max stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray painted with an angry tomato-faced emoji. “My wife says it’s because I’m jealous and I experience the typical male power fantasy vicariously through them.”

Eiji made a thoughtful noise.

“I’m not so oblivious that I’d say she’s _100 percent_ wrong,” Max admitted. “But it’s more than that, you know? These kids, they’re extraordinary. All of ‘em, they’ve got powers no one can understand. Could’ve done anything and they picked up a goddamn cape, or the equivalent of one at least, to clean up this trash heap. They’re living proof that it’s the choices we make and the actions we take that define us. There’s a war in our hearts, Bambi. I have to hope there’ll be superheroes who take up the mantle because that’s the only sign we’re winning it.”

 

**the second time he met ash lynx**

 

“Can I take your picture, please?” Eiji asked, lifting his camera as if it were the question mark tacked at the end.

Ash Lynx had circles under his eyes and made a face, but he said, “Okay. Since you _asked_.” 

“Usually I take pictures of soup kitchens and waitresses,” said Eiji, because he was trying to cut back on the apologies. That may have sounded like an apology, but there were no words of remorse so he counted it as a success.

“Sounds nicer than following me into burning buildings and bank heists,” Ash Lynx said. He didn’t pose—he held himself awkwardly against a backdrop of police cars and the bank robbers being read their rights—but it was a good picture. He had very green eyes and very gold hair. Even his eyelashes were gold, like filigree.

Eiji showed him the screen afterwards. “Is that okay?”

Ash Lynx looked down at it. “What’s your name?” he asked.

 

**the fifth time he met ash lynx (and zip)**

 

In person, Zip was louder, brighter, and faster than he appeared on television. After the foiled car chase, he gave Max five minutes of ultra-condensed play-by-play material while Ash Lynx stood with his arms crossed, as approachable as a grease fire. The material, based on what Eiji overhead, consisted of exclamations like “this boss-ass bitch” and “then _teamwork_ happened” while jerking his thumb at Ash.

Eiji snapped pictures of the car dangling from the freeway overhang like a smoldering ornament. He was concentrating so hard on perfecting the angle of the shot so that the hole in the windshield would be visible, he didn’t realize Zip had abandoned Max to flit around his back until Zip shouted in his ear, “You’re the guy!”

“Please back off from the photographer,” said Ash Lynx. 

“He clocked Arthur,” Zip said. “Doesn’t that warrant immediate superhero status? Hey kid, how do you feel about The Clocker?”

Eiji hoped his smile conveyed the full extent of his internal panic.

Zip nodded, stroking his chin. “Too literal. I’m thinking… He-Who-Lens-a-Hand. Get it?”

“His name is _Eiji_ ,” Ash Lynx said. “Why are you like this.”

 

**the eighth time (ash is fine)**

 

Glaring at the pavement as if he had a vendetta against its existence, Ash said, “If you’re going to be around all the time, can you not call me by my professional name? It sounds strange. Ash is fine.”

“Okay,” said Eiji. “Then, Ash—please can I have a smile? You always look so _serious_ and I am not sure it makes sense because you’ve caught a bad man. What if they don’t read the article? They will think maybe you lost the fight or maybe—”

“ _Fine_ ,” said Ash, and bared his teeth.

Eiji didn’t take the picture. “Okay,” he said seriously, “now lift your hand and make a peace sign. Two fingers. Like this.” He gave a solid example. “Thirty degree angle—it’s very important!”

Ash did an involuntary thing with his mouth and eyes and shoulders. Eiji took the picture.

“You can’t use that,” Ash said immediately.

“Why not? It’s a good picture. That trick always works when I’m doing children’s pictures,” Eiji told him, examining the screen for any possible improvements.

Zip was still securing Silk Spider with a zip tie, but he looked up at that. “What?”

“What?” said Silk Spider.

“ _What,_ ” said Ash.

 

**the eleventh time (the world, always changing)**

 

The leaves were starting to turn colors. Eiji liked taking walks just to see them, so he was relieved when Ash stopped Doctor Pandemonium’s henchmen from plowing through Central Park in their getaway tanks. Possibly the very idea of getaway tanks, in New York City’s traffic, was a flawed one.

Eiji mentioned that to Ash, who smiled with one side of his mouth, then both sides, as if it took a while to reach around.

“Good thing you’re on our side,” he said.

Maybe he was making fun of Eiji. Maybe he wasn’t. Eiji rammed his elbow into Ash’s side, just in case.

After the arrests were made, Ash hung around to ask Eiji about his family, and where he’d grown up, and if he liked New York, and whether he’d ever tried the hot dogs outside the New York Public Library because they were the best in the city. Eiji was supposed to be taking pictures, but he forgot. He promised he would try the hot dogs. He showed Ash a picture of a very cute cat his sister had sent him that morning. Ash agreed it was cute, for a cat. 

 

**the twentieth time (dino the destroyer)**

 

The rubble shifted beneath Eiji’s sneakers. He froze, heart kicking up a racket in his ears, and waited until the ominous groan of debris settled once more. Then he sat down on top of what used to be a security desk—probably—and decided he’d wait for one of the firemen to clear a safe path out of the ruin of the building to the street.

That would give him some time to consider his poor life choices, anyway. It was one thing to follow Max Lobo into stupid, dangerous situations. It was another thing to see Ash Lynx plow into a skyscraper and make the conscious decision to run in after him, even as the building foundation began to shake, even as the power abruptly cut out and people began to scream from its bowels.

_It’s different when it’s Dino,_ Max had once told him, unusually grim. _You stay out of the way until the dust’s settled when it’s Dino, you hear me? Most guys just want attention. Dino wants results._

He’d as good as warned him, but Eiji hadn’t understood his meaning or the multitude of warnings behind it. He understood now. The building had come down around him while his breath bleated and his mind burrowed like a rabbit so deep that he couldn’t hear it anymore. He thought maybe people were dead. He thought maybe Ash—maybe Ash was—

Eiji wedged himself between two broken computer monitors and buried his face in his arms and knees. The dust was so thick on every inch of him, he felt like it was snowing.

He was there for minutes. He was there for hours. Either way, the sky was still blue in its casing when he heard his name, frantic: once, twice, four times, more, in ways he’d never heard it said before. There was a shriek of metal; he lifted his head and saw the elevator doors had been peeled open like a chestnut, Ash’s silhouette a chalky specter that matched his own. But alive. _Alive_.

Ash twisted around, a fixed and terrible fire behind his eyes. He scanned the wreckage. Eiji’s camera dangled from his fist, the lens broken.

He wasn’t sure he could speak. He tried to, anyway, clearing his throat with a rattle-cough.

It was enough. Ash found him.

(He pried Eiji out of his hiding place with hands that shook. “Why are you shaking,” Eiji whispered, reaching to touch the split skin across his temple. Ash caught his fingers, pressed them tightly, and said, “It’s you. You’re shaking.” The truth was likely somewhere in between. Ash lifted him as if he was weightless and flew them out. It was nothing like Eiji had imagined flying to be: bedrock was not as certain; the planets spun as slow as molasses in a jar.)

 

**that’s a lie; it was everything he imagined**

 

Eiji took two days of vacation time to lounge around in his pajamas and read every back issue of Shounen Jump he owned. Sometimes he left the window open, but he never had any visitors. The nightmares were muted, monochrome affairs that left in the morning and didn’t get too attached. They would pass.

Maybe he never had any visitors, but there were handprints in the dust on his sill. It was too easy—foolish, maybe, but easy—to imagine Ash leaning in to listen for his measured breathing in the night. It was a comforting idea.

He bought a new camera. He got back to work.

 

**an explanation for the current state of affairs**

 

Slowly but surely, Eiji integrated himself into this fraught world where men and women could fly and melt steel and disappear and break the sound barrier. He did this and stayed alive by being quiet, unassuming, and good-natured. He asked a lot of questions. Sometimes he even received answers. Most of the time, he worked with Ash or Zip, although it didn’t take long to come face to face with some of their sidekicks: Star Kid with his tattooed cheek, Skipper (always a voice in someone’s ear, never present), and Kong, who towered above Eiji but didn’t have anything but smiles for him. He dealt with Kestrel, a small dark-eyed teenager with a sharp voice and sharper wire, anytime trouble went down in Chinatown. Once, he even met CAIN.

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked, worried about the blue flames licking up his skin.

CAIN pushed his sunglasses down and gave him a long look. “You’re serious.”

Eiji was indeed serious.

“Now I see why you’ve got the Lynx all riled up,” CAIN said. “You do good work, Bambi.”

“That isn’t my name,” Eiji said, pained.

“Oops,” said Max. “I’ll own that, sorry.”

It wasn’t long after that, though, when the kidnappings started.

There had to be a sound explanation, but Eiji couldn’t think of one. He was baffled by the persistence—surely any citizen would do for a trap? Was it really necessary to go to that much trouble to spirit Eiji away from his apartment, to grab him in between coffee runs, to swoop out of the shadows while he was trying to coax a stray in an alleyway from under the dumpster? Once, Doctor Pandemonium even knocked him out while he was deciding between videos at the rental store— _March of the Penguins_ or _Ninja Assassin_ —and he woke up strapped to an operating table. That had been particularly unpleasant, and Ash stayed with him a long time afterwards as his knees juddered and his throat grew tight and his field of vision stayed narrow. “I’d _never_ let him,” Ash told Eiji, sounding furious but also as helpless as Eiji felt, and that similarity made him feel strangely better when nothing else did.

Ash always came. Ash always saved him.

Unfortunately, every supervillain in the city came to the same realization. 

 

**back to the current state of affairs: dinner**

 

“Okay,” said Eiji, “I am entrusting you with a very important job. This rice cooker is worth more than my _life_. My mother gave me this rice cooker. It’s older than you. It’s stronger.”

“You could get a new one for twenty dollars,” Ash said.

“I could get a new pair of shoes for twenty dollars,” Eiji pointed out. “Better investment.” He began to pull ingredients out of his icebox: the trout still fresh from the market, half a bag of unwilted lettuce, a half-peeled onion. His kitchen was the same compact shape his parents’ had been and he had to maneuver around Ash’s body to do it.

Ash seemed to be taking it all in, distracted by the color-coordinated row of plastic Tupperware containers on top of the cupboards. “Is money a… problem?”

“I live in New York,” said Eiji. “You live in New York.” He suddenly thought of something that made him feel a little crazy. “Wait, are you paid? For what you do?”

“It’s complicated,” Ash hedged.

Eiji squinted at him and handed him a bag of rice. “You live in a penthouse,” he accused, taking a wild swing at the pitch. “Your neighbors are housewives who married bankers and Microsoft executives. You have an espresso machine. Yes? Yes, I am right?”

“God, you came for my life,” Ash said, clutching the rice to his chest. “I’ll have you know, I _used_ to share a shoebox full of cockroaches with Skip. We lived in Queens. I took the bus. Everything about it sucked. Old crusty assholes hit on me.”

“You live in a _penthouse_ ,” Eiji crowed. “You have _espresso_.”

“Shut up.” He was laughing, though, measuring out cups of rice with the tiny plastic cup as if the grains were gold. When he wasn’t floating around—when he had two feet on the ground—he was still taller than Eiji but easier to look at. “I deserve espresso. Look at what I put up with every day.”

Eiji finished chopping the onion and blinked past the acrid burn. He liked the feeling of Ash at his back. “Oh yes,” he said, “all of that adoration. I am feeling so sorry for you? See this tear?” He showed him his cheek.

He didn’t expect Ash to reach out and brush the tear away. But that was a thing that happened.

“You’re a world-class bleeding heart,” Ash murmured. There was such poor lighting in Eiji’s kitchen that his eyes looked darker, like light-feeders. “You’ll just let anyone in, won’t you?”

_Oh_ , thought Eiji. _That’s what I thought it’d feel like—the flying._

(The rice was too crispy. They ate on Eiji’s balcony after nightfall, and Ash finished his plate before he even took a swig of his beer. He’d cracked open the bottle caps with his bare hands. Eiji took a picture of him holding the butt of the bottle flat to his forehead, relishing the cool and damp condensation. It was a good picture.)

 

**the kestrel gifts his two cents and a name**

 

“You should probably ditch the Lynx,” Kestrel told him, then scowled in time for the flash. He was perched on a fire escape; the man who shot out a convenience store was wrapped so tightly in wire at his feet that Eiji couldn’t see anything except his ears and his hair sticking out in hay-like tufts. That Eiji was in the neighborhood at all was a coincidence, but news was news.

“It’s not his fault,” said Eiji.

“Look, I don’t care one way or another. But the Spider hates it when people mess with his great design and apparently Ash Lynx is central to his _vision_. He’s mostly harmless, so I’d hate for you to inspire him to stupider heights. He’s a dumbass, but he’s our dumbass.”

That was the way of Chinatown. Eiji nodded in understanding and fished in his pockets for a piece of butterscotch candy. He held it up in offering.

Kestrel huffed at him. “I’m not a kid!”

“Who doesn’t like candy?” Eiji demanded.

“I don’t like candy!”

“I’ll eat it then,” said Eiji, cross. He fumbled with the wrapper.

There was some silence while he pocketed the sweet in his cheek and folded up the wrapper into the smallest square possible. Kestrel was watching him with single-minded intensity—he was like Ash in that way, although Eiji knew he’d hate the comparison. “The thing is,” he said finally, “the Lynx likes you. A lot. He’s never liked anyone before. That puts you in a lot of danger. You know about Dino. You know they’ve got history.”

It was tempting to pretend he knew anything at all about it, but Eiji wasn’t about to get caught out in a lie by a teenager. “I know they _have_ history,” he admitted.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t care. He can tell me if it’s important.”

“He’s going to get you killed,” Kestrel said, and he sounded so genuinely upset about it that Eiji was touched.

He fished another piece of candy out of his pocket and held it up. This time, Kestrel silently reached down and plucked it from his fingertips. “You’re so good,” Eiji said softly, with real affection. “I don’t know how you do the things you do, but it’s incredible. You don’t have to carry me, though. Neither does Ash. I’m older than both of you.”

“Whatever.”

“See? That is the war cry of the teenager, Kestrel.”

Kestrel stood, oddly stiff. “My name is Sing,” he said, and then, “but don’t tell that creepy old man you work with. I’m only telling you.”

His mouth shaped the name in surprise, but he didn’t get a chance to use it. In a gust of wind—a clatter down the alley that tore his attention for an instant—Kestrel— _Sing_ —was gone. 

 

**the definition of power is not what you lift but what you carry**

 

Eiji was not stupid. He was also, despite most assumptions, not naïve. _Mostly_ , he was not naïve.

In this, there was no hiding. There was a limited amount of reasons for why someone would lie awake at night, holding a camera up to his face and scrolling through image after image on the card. He kept all of them—even the silly or blurred ones. Looking at them made his chest heavy, made sinking into sleep an afterthought. Maybe it was true that Ash had attached to him, but it was equally true that Eiji had attached to Ash. What they had was untenable; it couldn’t be easily defined despite the ease with which Eiji understood it. 

He tried not to attribute their friendship more importance than it had earned. But Ash had been in his kitchen—Ash had come for him, every time—Ash seemed to hear him in a crowd no matter how many people were clamoring for his favor. This was difficult evidence to refute.

It wasn’t a hard thing, admitting that he loved Ash. He simply did. He wasn’t ashamed to know it. He wasn’t afraid.

Loving Ash made him feel invincible. Like even his dreams could be shaped into malleable things: every idle daydream, every guilty longing. Like if he went to the kitchen in his bare feet and pajamas, and pushed the window open, and climbed out on the ledge, maybe Ash would be there and take his hand and lift him to the moon. Eiji could fly because Ash could. His strength was Eiji’s strength. 

And at some point, when Ash would push no further into the atmosphere, it would be Eiji who kept rising into the brilliant collapse of the stars. He’d pull Ash after him. He’d be buoyant, lit from within. _It’s going to be okay_ , he would say, kissing Ash as he’d want to kiss him for every morning after. _I’m going to make a home for you to fall into._

Like his parents, Eiji would build it with care, with love, with intention.

 

**on max lobo: take two**

 

“Listen,” said Max. “You’re a damn fine photographer, Bambi.”

“You use too many adjectives in your articles,” Eiji said without looking up from the paper. He had feelings about the new typeset; those feelings were tetchy at best.

“You can be an asshole,” Max amended, “but that’s why I like you. I bet that’s even why Ash Lynx likes you.”

Eiji, who was developing a kind of acuity for these conversations, squinted at him. He hunched down so that the folded paper covered most of his face. “I am a very nice person,” he groused. “I have manners. I say hello to all of my neighbors.”

“Also why Ash Lynx likes you.”

“If he likes me as much as you and everyone thinks, then maybe he should say something!”

Max looked nonplussed. There was chocolate in his stubble that Eiji spitefully had no intention of pointing out to him. “Wait,” he said, then pushed his swivel chair closer to Eiji’s desk. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you _want_ him to ask you out?”

“No, that’s not—”

“Because I can’t emphasize how much trouble dating a superhero is. You might as well pin fresh bait to your shirt and go swimming in a shark tank. You know why there are no married superheroes? ‘Cause no one’s that stupid.”

Eiji felt like ripping the paper in half and crying at the same time. He did neither. “Max,” he said, each word its own stone, “I am already suffering the effects. What I would _like_ is to… to enjoy at least one of its advantages.”

There were many things about Max Lobo that could be considered suspect. But he was a father, and he knew how to slug his arm around someone and hug them, just so, to make the ache a little better. “Aw, Ei-chan,” he said, rocking their chairs together as he did. “Love is shit. Believe me and leave it to the dogs.”

Huffing a little, Eiji tucked his head under Max’s chin. “I would not mess it up like you.”

Max held him there, his laughter a rippling sputter in his chest that Eiji could feel. “That’s what we all say, kiddo,” he said. “But you know. Even a mess like me made something kind of awesome from it, so I guess, if you like the guy that much, I _could_ put in a good word for you.”

“Hmm,” said Eiji, doubtful.

“I knew his brother,” Max admitted. “So I, uh, kind of know who he really is.”

“ _What_ ,” said Eiji.

 

**the definition of power is not what you do but what you don’t**

 

It was nearing midnight. Eiji’s vision was blurred and he’d begun slinking into the liminal territory between waking and sleeping, so he switched off the television, took his mug to the kitchen sink, and rinsed the tea leaves out. Every breath felt like an effort; every breath felt like a release. He stood there in his dark kitchen for a long time, the ceramic rim of the sink pressed like a cool kiss against his palms, holding him up.

Someone knocked on his window.

Eiji put the mug in the sink and went to open it. He came face to face with Ash, who held to the sill much like Eiji had held to the sink, as if it were the only thing keeping him aloft. He wasn’t in jeans and his trademark jacket; he was in sweatpants and a white t-shirt, a pillow crease denting his cheek. They regarded each other.

“I couldn’t sleep,” said Ash.

Eiji touched the mark in his cheek. It was like something out of a dream, so he didn’t feel embarrassed by the impulse. “You’re cold,” he said.

“It’s—it’s almost always cold, flying. My face can get really chapped.”

“You’re _here_.”

“I shouldn’t be,” Ash said, sinking lower. He looked upset with himself.

“Maybe,” Eiji said, “you could come inside and drink my beer again, so you’ll feel a little better about it.” He stepped back, the invitation implicit.

_There’s a war in our hearts, Bambi,_ Max had once said. It was never more apparent to Eiji than now in the way Ash visibly swallowed, in the longing that mangled his attempt at a smile. He was awash in moonlight that pooled flame-white in his eyes. He was painfully young and painfully brave, and he remade Eiji’s heart in that image.

Eiji reached down to take Ash’s t-shirt by its collar. He drew him up, and in, and to him.

Unprepared, Ash stumbled a little as he clipped the floor. Maybe he was cold, but the solid wall of his body was reassuring, a promise of warmth to come. He clutched Eiji’s arms, shock-still. 

“I told Max not to tell you,” Eiji said quietly.

“I’ve practically ruined your life. I didn’t think you’d…”

_What life_? he could have asked. _What did I have before this? Before you acted like I was something wonderous?_ But he knew the answer was more complicated than that. Language was too clumsy, barely a frame for what it encompassed.

Eiji slid his fingers into Ash’s fine hair. He lifted to his toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Come to bed,” he said.

Ash shuddered into his touch.

“Just to sleep,” Eiji whispered. “Just to be. So you can sleep. Is that okay?”

“I need to walk away from you,” Ash said brokenly. “I need to do that because it’s the only way I can keep you safe.”

“So I will buy a taser. I will take self-defense classes.” Eiji pressed their temples together, folding him in his arms the best he could. “Teach me code words. Fly me home from work.”

“It’s not that easy,” said Ash against him. Then, “Is it?”

_You have to hope there’ll be someone who takes up the mantle,_ Eiji thought. _It’s the only sign you aren’t in this fight alone._

There was a pockmark from an earring long closed over in Ash’s earlobe. It was a story Eiji wanted to hear and carry. His fingertip stroked the lump of scar tissue. He didn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep, but he said, “Let’s find out.” 

 

**one year later: we carry the fire untouchable and bright**

 

“When are you gonna ask this nice boy to marry you,” said Shorter (which couldn’t possibly be Zip’s actual secret identity, although Ash insisted otherwise).

Eiji forgave him the subterfuge on account of his solidarity. “Yes, Ash,” he said, “please tell me when that is a thing that will happen.”

His mouth full of shrimp salad, Ash considered them both. Then he flipped them off.

“Kestrel’s gonna get to it first if you aren’t careful!” Shorter shouted over Eiji’s ringing laughter and the rattle of the flagpoles on the outside of the building façade, only a few dozen feet below them. It was a little chilly on the rooftop of the skyscraper, but it was certainly one of the most private lunch spots in the city. “I seen him eyein’ Eiji—waiting to swoop in as soon as he puts down his taser—”

“He’s a _child_ ,” Eiji protested. “I’m helping him with college applications!”

“A deliberate ploy,” said Shorter. “Ash, if you like it, you better put a ring on it.”

Ash swallowed, checked his teeth in the reflection of the fork, and said with a reasonable degree of doubt, “Isn’t the first step to move in together?”

“So nice of you to ask,” Eiji said sweetly. “Yes, Ash, I will move into your penthouse apartment—”

“Look, it’s not that—"

“—with your espresso machine and Mrs. Coleman’s thank-you casseroles and Jerry the security man who is _so nice_ to me—”

“Maybe I _like_ your place,” huffed Ash, coloring.

Oh. Well, that was.

“Please don’t make the goo eyes at each other,” Shorter said sadly.

It was far too late for that. Eiji wasn’t responsible for what his face was doing much less what it was doing to Ash. He tried to take an aimless bite of his own salad and missed by about half a cheekbone. If anything, Ash’s besotted expression intensified.

“Besides,” he said, softer, “can you imagine? Every villain in town would crash the wedding. We’d have to have it in a _bunker_. Half the force in attendance. It’ll take at least a year to get arrangements made.”

Eiji, who thought he’d been well-composed, closed his eyes. He breathed as if he’d never tasted oxygen in his life. He even forgave the deep groan of dismay from Shorter, who had sprawled face-first onto the rooftop and covered his head.

When he opened his eyes, everything was just as perfect as he left it: the sky was blue, Ash was windswept, and the possibilities were endless. He felt buoyant. He felt lit from within.

“Okay,” he said, climbing over Shorter’s prone body and ignoring his squawk. “Since you _asked_.”

“I didn’t ask you anything,” Ash said, cupping his cheeks with fingers that were soundly cold. He never smiled like that for the camera. “I think you’re imagining things,” he added, and punctuated it with a kiss that was soundly cold, too. It sung its way into Eiji, anyway.

(Eiji kissed him again instead of arguing. He’d already found the ring in Ash’s sock drawer, and some things were worth waiting for no matter how many monologues were along the way.)

**Author's Note:**

> Some things that never made it into the fic:  
> \- Sing was originally tutored under Silk Spider/Yut-Lung's instruction. He may have decided villainy wasn't the path for him, but he's got a spongy spot for the guy, and it's not uncommon to find Yut-Lung in Sing's apartment half-drunk and wearing the Kestrel's mask like a tiara because "you never write, you never call."  
> \- Shunichi's actual words to Max were, "Please take any photographer but Ei-chan. He's the softest boy." So of course, Max took him.  
> \- The kidnappings did indeed taper off (though they never stopped completely) after Eiji's "I am only travel-sized for my convenience, not yours" cocktail and a very strong taser. The taser is named Buddy, later inherited by their dumb sweet dumpster dog because Eiji has no creativity when it comes to naming things or fashion. Ash still can't get him in a correctly sized belt.  
> \- Probably shit gets real at some point. That was not this story.  
> \- Ash was not bitten by a radioactive spider; he doesn't like to talk about where his powers came from, but he maintains, firmly and consistently, that it had nothing to do with any radioactivity of any kind. Eiji likes to roll on him and claim he's absorbing the latent radiation, and any day now he'll fly, too. Ash suffers for love.  
> \- "Should I _call_ you Aslan?" Eiji worries upon finding out, and Ash tells him to please, no, never call him by his real name. It gives him hives.  
> \- CAIN gets them a toaster for their anniversary. He's the only one that remembers the exact day, but no one is sure how he _knew_ what day it was. It's a great toaster; Eiji says CAIN is his favorite superhero. Ash continues to suffer for love.  
> \- They fly, every day.


End file.
